The 20 best smartphones in the world

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Get ready for a wave of new smartphones.

Mobile World Congress, the wireless industry's annual global confab, is about a month away. Every year MWC kicks off a series of announcements from phone manufacturers about new devices.

In addition to offering consumers new choices, the new devices also typically lead us to revise our list of top phones on the market. In many cases, though, we already have an inkling of what's coming.

Whether you're in the market for a phone right now or can wait until after the big show, we've got you covered.

Check out our list of the top 20 smartphones you can buy — and our picks for the ones to look forward to.

20. BlackBerry KeyOne

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The KeyOne is BlackBerry's successor to the Priv. Both run Android and feature physical keyboards. But while the Priv's keyboard slid out from behind its screen, the KeyOne's is permanently located just below its display.

The KeyOne is a great device for those who want both a physical keyboard and access to Google's apps and services, which aren't available on other BlackBerry devices.

18. Motorola Moto G5 Plus

Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

The Moto G5 Plus continues to be our favorite budget-friendly Android smartphone. It demonstrates that "good-but-not-great hardware can become [a] strong value at the right price," as Dunn said in his review.

With the G5 Plus, you get a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, a fingerprint scanner, great battery life, a 12-megapixel camera that beats those of other phones in its price range, a nearly pristine version of Android, and a sleek design. All for a mere $200.

Still, the G5 Plus doesn't have as many features as premium phones. For example, it doesn't have an NFC antenna, so it can't be used for mobile payments. And to charge the device, you'll have to use a microUSB cable; it doesn't support USB-C, the newer, faster phone-charging standard.

16. Motorola Moto Z2 Force

Motorola/Lenovo

The Moto Z2 Force comes with everything you'd expect from a premium smartphone. As Dunn noted in his review, it's "very fast, its screen looks good, its cameras are capable of taking nice photos, and it has a razor-thin frame." And its 5.5-inch AMOLED display is more resistant to cracking than most other smartphones' screens.

However, the Z2 Force is a little too reliant on Motorola's Mods. Those are the company's line of snap-on accessories, including external speakers and bigger batteries, that are designed for its Z-series phones. Without such Mods, the Z2 Force doesn't really measure up to the devices that rank higher on this list.

15. Apple iPhone SE/6S/6S Plus

I grouped all these together because they are all two-years-old, have similar specs, and are still available from Apple. They're also still amazing smartphones.

Last fall, Apple released iOS 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system, and my iPhone 6S Plus still runs great with it.

The SE, 6S, and 6S Plus all feature great cameras and Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which allows you to quickly unlock your phone. Another bonus: These are the last iPhones that still have headphone jacks.

These phones are even better if you buy them refurbished from Apple; you'll get a deep discount if you do.

14. HTC U11

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The U11 has an excellent camera, an eye-catching reflective back, and speedy performance. And it has a fun feature that allows you to squeeze its edges to open any app you want, including Google Assistant.

In most respects, it's a great Android smartphone. But it has two notable shortcomings — it lacks a headphone jack, and the borders around its display are relatively large, which makes it look old-fashioned.

13. LG G6

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The G6 is LG's best smartphone. With it, LG is finally offering a phone with a premium design and water-resistance — features that put the G6 in the same league as Samsung's and Apple's flagship devices.

The G6 has a good dual-lens camera and a screen that's taller than normal, which makes it great for viewing and using apps.

But the G6 has one notable downside: an older processor. Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip was superseded by the Snapdragon 835 two months after the G6 launched. Unlike the G6, Samsung's Galaxy S8, one of its chief rivals, has the newer chip.

While the Snapdragon 821 is still a great processor, its likely to become obsolete sooner than its successor, and the G6 is likely to start seeming slower sooner than the Galaxy S8.

Wait for it: LG is expected to release the successor to the G6 at MWC. Check out the rumors at the end of this list.

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12. Essential Phone

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The Essential Phone is a gorgeous device. It has a nearly edge-to-edge display and a case made of ultrapremium materials — ceramic on the back and titanium on the sides. It also runs a nearly stock version of Android, which I prefer over the heavily modified versions that Samsung and LG phones tend to use.

Overall, the Phone is a great first effort from Essential. It's speedy and takes great photos. It also has two magnetic pins on its back that serve as a connection point for peripherals, including a 360-degree camera and a wireless-charging dock.

Essential recently dropped the price of the Phone to $500 from $700. That's a great deal for a great phone.

11. Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

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The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are among the best-looking smartphones out right now. They're more attractive than Apple's iPhone 8 and sleeker than Samsung's Note 8.

With the S8 and S8 Plus, Samsung refined the curved glass design it used with the S7. Meanwhile, the ultranarrow borders around the devices' screens make them the new standard for premium smartphone design.

In addition to their good looks, the Galaxy S8 phones are full of great features. They're water-resistant. They have taller-than-average screens, allowing you to see more of your apps or webpages. They support both fast and wireless charging and face and iris recognition.

They have one of the best cameras, and, unlike Apple Pay or Android Pay, Samsung's Pay wireless-payments service works on pretty much every credit-card reader. And they each have a home button, so it's easier to adjust to using them than phones that have ditched the feature.

With all those attributes, you're likely wondering why the S8 phones didn't make the top of this list. Here's why: I'm not a fan of TouchWiz, Samsung's software interface that runs on top of Android. I instead prefer the clean look and features of stock Android.

But it's more than a simple personal preference. Modifications like TouchWiz almost always prevent the phones running them from installing the latest Android updates when they're released. And that's the case here.

The S8 phones rely on TouchWiz for face- and iris-recognition capabilities. But those features are poor compensation for the inability to install timely Android updates.

Wait for it: Samsung is expected to release the Galaxy S9 at MWC. Check out the rumors at the end of this list.

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10. Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus

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The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are now more than a year old, but for $550 and $670, respectively, they easily beat the Galaxy S8 phones.

Apple phones generally offer better apps and a better owner experience than their Android rivals, and the iPhone 7 is no different. The support you get from Apple if something goes wrong is superior to what you get from Android device makers. And unlike on most Android phones, with iPhones you can always get the latest software updates straight from Apple as soon as it releases them.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus offer some compelling features, including water-resistant cases, great cameras that perform well in low light, and a powerful processor. The phones also work well with other Apple products, including the company's wireless AirPods headphones.

The iPhone 7 Plus' dual-lens camera system is its distinguishing feature. It allows you to take pictures with a professional-looking "bokeh" effect, which blurs the background behind your subject. Additionally, the system allows you to zoom in on your subjects; its second camera offers a 2x optical zoom.

Unlike the digital zoom feature found in other cameras, an optical zoom allows you to enlarge an image of your subject without sacrificing picture quality.

9. Razer Phone

Razer/Amazon

The Phone is marketed as a "gaming" phone, mostly because of its unique display. The Phone can refresh its screen 120 times a second; most phones, by comparison only refresh their screens 60 times a second. The Phone's faster refresh rate allows it to offer super smooth gameplay.

But the Phone doesn't just use the feature to make games look good. The refresh rate also affects the way it displays apps and its Android interface. It works beautifully; everything you do on the phone is ultrasmooth in a way never seen before on a smartphone. In fact, Razer may have set the standard for how all phone displays should work — not just those on gaming devices.

But there's more to the Phone than just its screen. It's also got an eye-catching industrial design that stands out when compared with the sleek and svelte designs of most other Android phones.

The large borders above and below the Phone's screen may look out of step with the borderless designs of other recent phones. But hiding beneath those borders are the loudest and best speakers we've heard on any smartphone.

8. Huawei Mate 10 Pro

Huawei

The Mate 10 Pro is the most enticing one to date that the Chinese company has offered in the US market. It features a nice, if somewhat generic, design; water resistance; a large, 4,000mAh battery; and a dual-lens camera system.

It also runs on a Kirin 970 processor that comes with something called a neural-network processing unit, or NPU. The NPU lets the phone adapt and respond to how you use it. It can adjust the device's power consumption to offer both the best performance and efficiency.

Combined with the Mate 10 Pro's jumbo-sized battery, the NPU allows the device to have insane battery life.

7. Samsung Galaxy Note 8

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With its gorgeous design, ultrathin borders around its screen, a beautiful display, fast performance, a dual-lens camera system, and fancy stylus-based features, the Note 8 takes the best attributes of Samsung's Galaxy S and Note smartphone lines and smashes them together into a phone that's hard to beat.

6. OnePlus 5T

If you're looking for a huge bargain, the OnePlus 5T is the Android phone to get. It's a fantastic phone that's only made better by its incredible $500 starting price.

It comes with more memory than any other smartphone we've tried, guaranteeing top performance. On top of that, its great camera comes with a portrait mode that competes with those of the iPhone X and Google's Pixel 2. And it has one of my favorite features in an Android phone: It runs a near-stock version of the operating system.

5. Google Pixel 2

Google

The Pixel 2 might not be the most beautiful Android phone you can buy, but it has a secret weapon that vaults it above most of the competition — it runs the latest and purest version of the operating system. Because it's unadulterated, that version looks and runs better than any of the tweaked takes on Android other phone makers include with their devices.

Better yet, because the Pixel 2's Android is unmodified, you'll be able to install the latest updates as soon as Google rolls them out. That's not something you can usually do with other Android phones. But it's important and, hey, who doesn't want to get the latest version of Android as soon as it's available?

But the Pixel 2 has other features that help put it ahead of other Android devices, including an amazing camera, great performance, and outstanding battery life. And unlike its predecessor, the original Pixel, the Pixel 2 is water-resistant. All told, it's like a smarter —if less attractive — Galaxy phone.

Still, there's one way the Pixel 2 doesn't match up to the original Pixel. We rated that device higher than the iPhone 7, which came out at about the same time. But we rate the iPhone 8 higher than the Pixel 2. That's because the iPhone 8 supports wireless charging and ships with a set of headphones, and the Pixel 2 offers neither.

4. Google Pixel 2 XL

Google

The Pixel 2 XL has nearly the same components and features that make the Pixel 2 great. But it comes in a bigger package with a larger display and a fresher-looking design. The Pixel 2 XL isn't the best-looking Android phone, but with the narrow borders around its screen, it looks sleeker and more refined than its smaller sibling or its predecessors from last year.

And the unadulterated Android experience it offers is unbeatable.

Users and reviewers initially reported encountering several problems with the Pixel 2 XL, mostly with its screen. Some reported that the colors it displayed weren't as vibrant as those on other top Android phones. Google later issued an update that made colors appear more vibrant.

3. Apple iPhone 8

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Google's original Pixel phones topped last year's iPhone 7. But now that the new iPhones are here, Apple is back on top.

The iPhone 8 comes with a refined glass-and-metal case, a superb camera, and incredible performance. With it, Apple is finally supporting both wireless and fast charging — features that Android phones have long offered but had been missing from previous iPhones.

What pushes the iPhone 8 ahead of the Android pack is its iOS operating system and the broader Apple ecosystem. You can get the latest updates straight from Apple as soon as they're released, iOS apps are generally better-designed than their Android counterparts, and if something goes wrong with your phone, you can get help at one of the hundreds of Apple Stores.

2. Apple iPhone 8 Plus

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The iPhone 8 Plus includes all the best things about the iPhone 8. But it adds to them a bigger, better screen and a dual-lens camera system that features a telephoto lens and the ability to take shots like those you could capture with a professional camera.

WAIT FOR IT: Samsung Galaxy S9

At least according to the rumors, the Galaxy S9 sounds like it's going to look and work a lot like its predecessor, the Galaxy S8.

One possible difference could be in the placement of the fingerprint sensor on the new device. We're hoping the sensor on the S9 won't be as awkward and difficult to use as it is on the S8.

Another area that could see changes is in the new phone's camera system. We doubt there will be a major revision. But a few rumors suggest that the Galaxy S9+, the larger version of the device, will come with a dual-lens camera.

We also expect Samsung will use a new chip that will dramatically improve the facial recognition it offered in the S8.

If you're specifically looking for a top-of-the-line Samsung smartphone, it's in your best interest to wait for MWC. The latest rumors suggest the company will debut the phone at the show.

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WAIT FOR IT: Moto G6

The Moto G5 Plus.
Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

Motorola announced its Moto G5 at last year's MWC, so we're expecting the Lenovo-owned company to unveil the device's successor at this year's event.

According to the latest rumors, the G6 is expected to get a display with an 2:1 aspect ratio, which is in line with other recent Android devices. Apart from that, little else has been rumored about the phone.

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WAIT FOR IT: LG G7

The LG G6.
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LG announced the G6 at last year's MWC, so we're expecting it to unveil the G7 this year.

According to the rumors, LG's latest flagship phone will sport Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 845 chip. That should allow the G7 to better compete with its rivals on performance than its predecessor.

Apart from that, little else has been rumored about the upcoming phone. Stay tuned.